The Angst Writers' Union
by Avenue47
Summary: A fluff fic tribute to rabid fans. Warning: very cheesy!


Dr. Sydney Bristow typed hurriedly at her keyboard, while her eyes intently watched the words and phrases appear on the screen. She only had about twenty minutes before her fiance would arrive to take her to dinner, and she had so little time for her guilty pleasure these days. She decided to take a few minutes to review what she had written.

_Syndie awoke to the sound of dripping water, the sound of traffic, and the sound of many people speaking in a foreign language. Her eyes felt gritty, and she fought to open them. When she did, what she saw completely shocked her._

She was not lying on the floor in her living room, the last place she remembered being. Instead, she was lying in a dark, dank alley. It looked to be somewhere in Singapore, judging from the neon signs she could see, and the language she heard.

She tried to sit up, and found it very difficult. She felt as if she had been drugged, and she wondered what had happened to her while she was unconscious. Had she been kidnapped and questioned? What did she tell them? Was her father and Slade involved? She had to find a phone and check in.

Syn struggled up to her feet, and out of the alley. It looked like she was in a shopping district, which would make her search easier. As she stumbled along, nobody looked askance at the one lone woman limping through the crowds of people.

She finally found a pay phone, and she punched in a number from memory. When the dispatcher answered, she gave her confirmation. A few seconds later, the voice of an anonymous agent came on the line, and directed her to the nearest safehouse.

Syn felt somewhat dismayed at the thought of more walking, but her spirits lifted as she discovered that she was gaining her strength back. Whatever drug was in her system was wearing off.

She made her way to the safehouse, which masqueraded as a hehouse. The silent proprietor ushered her past many "ladies of the night," to a small dingy bedroom. She would not tell Syn anything, except to wait for her contact.

So Syn waited. While she waited, she examined herself, to find some clue as to what happened. All the bumps, cuts, and bruises she should have from her fight with the false Billy were not there. In fact, her body felt as if she had not been injured in weeks, if not months.

She found two things even more disturbing that her lack of injury. First, her hair was gone. Her long, luxuriant, shining black hair was cut to chin-length. She wasn't at all conceited about her looks, but she always did love her hair. After her father "died," her mother would comfort the both of them by brushing it for an hour at a time. Not to mention that it was the color of her father's hair.

The second thing was that she had a strange symbol tattooed on her left breast, just over her heart…

However, Syn had little time to contemplate this particular alteration to her body, because the bedroom door opened, and her heart leaped under the suddenly insignificant tattoo.

"Hawn!" Syn jumped up and threw herself into the arms of the handsome blonde man in the doorway. She hugged him tightly, and didn't notice that his return hug was somewhat hesitant.

"Please sit down." His voiced sounded strained, and somewhat distant.

Syn sat down on the bed, confused. She quickly overcame her confusion, and began telling Hawn everything she could remember. "Billy's the clone and what happened to Felicia, she was hurt! And, did they catch my father and…"

"Syndie!" Hawn's voice cut through her panicked tirade like a knife, and she became quiet. She also became aware of how uncomfortable, and distressed he was. To confirm this, he rubbed his left hand across his face in one of his habitual gestures of nervousness. However, at the same time, Syn caught the unmistakable glint of gold.

"Hawn," Syn's voice was full of confusion, and a little terror. "Why are you wearing that ring?"

Syd rubbed her hands and laughed wickedly as she contemplated her story. Oh, this fic was going to be so full of angst! She wondered what the others on the boards would think, hoping she could wow them again. Up until now, her fics had been beautiful S/H 'shipper romances, with a few fluff fics, and even one tastefully done smut fic. But this was her entry for one of the board clubs, the Angst Writers' Union, and she hoped that it would blow the other members away.

Footsteps could be heard outside the hallway, and since no one else was in this part of the University late Friday evenings, Syd knew that it was her fiance. She saved her fic, and shut down her computer.

Just in time too, because someone knocked softly on the door, and then entered. Syd looked up and smiled.

Michael was still wearing his work suit, meaning that they were going somewhere nice tonight. Syd congratulated herself on bringing a dress with her to work today, and she had changed after her last class. She had also taken the time to apply a bit more make-up than she usually wore, and style her hair a little.

"I see you got my hint this morning. You look beautiful." As Syd rose from her chair, Michael took her hands in his, looked her over appreciatively, and then pulled her into a hug.

"Ah, I knew that you were going to take me out to a fancy dinner sooner or later," she teased. Michael had been really busy with work lately, and she would mock-complain that he had no time for her. But the tables would be turned in a couple of weeks, when the semester would soon end, and Syd would have term papers and final exams to grade. Tonight, they were taking advantage of the lull in both of their schedules, and having a night out.

Michael asked her if she was ready to go, and she nodded. Syd locked up her office, took Michael's hand, and they went out to the car.

"So what were you doing?" Michael asked Syd, as he turned the key in the ignition. Syd looked embarrassed for a moment, knowing what she was in for if she told him. But they knew everything about each other, and he had plenty of things he was into that she could tease him about.

"I was working on another fic." Michael dramatically rolled his eyes and grinned at her.

"Another one? What do you do during class? Tell the students to read while you write all day? Geez, you could at least be writing the Great American Novel, not fangirl fics for a television show!" He shook his head and laughed. "My girlfriend, the literature professor, writes fan fiction for an outrageously unrealistic spy show." Syd grinned back at him, and laughed also.

"Well you know, I have to live out my dream some way!"

Sydney Bristow wasn't always a literature professor at UCLA. She was once, like all literature professors were, a student. And when she was a student, she was approached with the opportunity to work for the CIA, and become a spy.

Syd thought that was funny, because her dad worked for the CIA too. In fact, he was pretty high up in the local office. But she had never considered going into her father's line of work. She had always dreamt of being a literature professor like her mother, who had tragically died in a car accident when Syd was just six.

After receiving the offer, she thought about it, and asked her dad his opinion. Jack Bristow had smiled lovingly at his only child, and told her the truth.

"Sydney, working in intelligence isn't the glamorous, exciting lifestyle that Hollywood makes it out to be. In fact it's boring. Very boring. It's the most boring time of your life, and if you're unfortunate, followed by the most terrifying ten seconds of your life." His answer had puzzled Syd.

"Then why do you do it, Dad?" Jack smiled again, and gently patted his daughter on the shoulder.

"Because I'm serving my country, Sydney. You can do that if you wish, in any manner that you wish. You know I've always wanted you to follow your own plans for your life. If you think intelligence work is for you, then go for it."

Syd had thought about it, and thought about what her dad said. And in the end, she had decided to stay with what she knew she wanted to do all along: get her Ph.D. in Literature, and teach at the University, just like her mother.

However, after that conversation, Jack started to take Syd with him to CIA functions, Christmas office parties and the like. "I haven't had someone to go with since your mother died, and I don't want to find anyone else." He explained.

It was at one of these functions that Syd met the young, charming Michael Vaughn. Like Syd, Michael's father also worked for the CIA, but had been killed in action. So when he was approached with the offer, Michael took it, dreaming of following in his father's footsteps, and perhaps succeeding where his father had failed. Jack told Syd that Michael was quickly becoming a favored operative for dangerous missions.

Still, Syd charmed Michael as much as he charmed her, and it wasn't long before they were dating. When it became clear that the relationship was something serious, Michael stopped going on missions, and became an analyst in the local office. Jack missed having someone to accompany him to Christmas parties, but overall, wasn't displeased.

Then not quite a year ago, Michael presented Syd with a lovely diamond ring, and asked her to be his wife. How could she say anything but "yes"? The wedding date was set for another six months away.

Planning to marry someone means finding out everything about that person. And Michael found out about Syd's obsession for the television show _AKA_. _AKA_ was a highly unrealistic (so Michael and Jack said) television show about spies working for the CIA; particularly one spy, Syndie Barton, and her love interest, Matthew Hawn.

Together, Syndie (Syn) and Hawn would travel the globe in search of ancient artifacts, and battle evil spies for them. The twist in the plot was that the head of the evil spies were Syn's own father, who she believed killed when she was young, and Syn's ex-boss, the uber-evil Slade. Though soap-opera-ish, the show riveted Sydney every week, and she forced Michael to watch it with her.

Soon, it became a joke between them that Syd only watched the show to vicariously live the life she gave up: the life of a spy. That even the coincidental similarity between the names of the characters, and the names of Syd and the people in her life were a message to her, that she should've become a spy. Every time Michael jokingly mentioned it, Syd would counter that it was better this way, considering the real spy-life would bore her to tears.

Michael got even more of a laugh when he found out that Syd actually wrote fan fiction for the series. He couldn't believe that his girlfriend, who was well versed in the Classics and the elements of great writing, wrote "tawdry" (his term) stories for a "soap opera that masquerades as a spy show." (Also his term.)

Syd endured all of this, and even got Michael to read some of her fics. He grudgingly admitted, if nothing else redeemed the stories, at least the writing was good.

"So what are you writing now, another romance novel?" Michael asked Syd, on their way home after dinner.

"Actually, I'm writing an angst fic!" Syd always became excited when Michael asked her about her obsession. Michael looked at her with a puzzled expression, though she could see the humor in his eyes.

"Angst? Isn't that what teenagers get that makes them all moody? In fact, I think one of the other analysts has a son with that…"

"Michael!" Syd slapped him lightly on the shoulder. "No! In fan fiction angst is…anger! Sadness! Frustration! Unrequited love!" She sighed heavily, and quite dramatically. Inside, she thought that it was great fun when they teased like this.

"Unrequited love? I thought Syn and Hawn were firmly together at the end of the season. Are you doing alternate universe?" For all the fun he made of Syd, Michael actually knew a lot about fan fics. Of course he did, it was one of Syd's favorite things. Syd giggled and squirmed a little in the car seat. Now she could really see if her storyline would work out! If it shocked Michael (as opposed to making him go "Eh, whatever"), it would definitely shock the Angst Writers' Union.

"Well, what I'm writing tears all that down! You know how Syn was unconscious in her living room after killing false Billy?" At Michael's eye-roll, and nod, she continued. "I'm writing that when she wakes up, she's in Singapore, her hair's cut, she has a tattoo, and…."

"Wait," Michael interrupted. "Her hair's cut? That's one of the things I really liked about her. And a tattoo…so she had a drunken night out on the town?" He gave her a look that said this wasn't worth his time, but the humor was still in his eyes.

"No!" Syd squealed. "Listen! She has a weird tattoo, and she feels like she's been drugged, and she calls Hawn, and he comes, and he's married, but not to her! He tells her that everyone thought she'd been dead for two years!"

"Interesting." It was all Michael said, but he truly sounded interested.

Encouraged, Syd continued.

"I haven't thought it all out, but Syn was kidnapped, and brainwashed to be an assassin, and Hawn married a beautiful, but incredibly boring woman who is actually evil!" Syd finished, and sank back into the car seat.

"Of course she's evil," Michael agreed. "You can't keep Syn and Hawn apart, you know." He smiled at Syd, and she knew he was teasing her about the show. But he was also right. It made her feel so good that even though he teased her endlessly, he still understood.

a few weeks later

Syd emerged from the home office, a huge grin plastered on her face. Michael looked up from reading the newspaper, and waited for the announcement that was sure to come.

"I did it! I did it! I'm in the Angst Writers' Union." Michael merely quirked an eyebrow.

"I'm happy for you." As nonplussed as he acted, he meant it.

"Only one bad thing."

"What's that?"

Syd mock-pouted. "I got number 47 on the members list." Michael rolled his eyes, and then joined in the high drama.

"Oh no! You mean you missed out on the incredible, mysterious, wondrous number 46?" Syd nodded sadly, but it didn't last. They both started laughing.


End file.
